Within the vast community of music performers in the world, many are
competent, some are truly wonderful and a very few are
extraordinary. Evelyn Glennie is among that rare group on the top
who not only bring special value to their artistry but give of
themselves in a unique way.

For the details of her background and current performing schedule, I'll
direct you to her website which is listed in her biography at the end
of this interview. Suffice it to say that she has taken this
specific arena of music and made it her own in such a way as to enhance
it and develop it and mold it into something unexpected until her
arrival.

Glennie performs both alone and with ensembles all over the
world. It was on her tour early in 1994 that she came to Chicago
and I was fortunate to be granted about 40 minutes for a
conversation. Hearing her speak, one would never guess that she
is deaf. After having my beard and mustache trimmed for the
occasion, I made sure to always face her directly and to enunciate
things clearly. She read my lips with accuracy and responded to
my questions with thought and wit.

Here is much of what we talked about that afternoon . . . . .

Bruce Duffie:
Tell me the joys and sorrows of
being a traveling musician!

Evelyn Glennie:
[Laughs] Well sometimes I wish I
played the
pennywhistle! No, it’s something that actually takes a
huge amount of organization, to move, perhaps, half a ton of equipment
around. So, we’re working very, very hard to sort out the
equipment. For example, I have a marimba based in Tokyo, one
in America, and three at home so that we can have them in different
places within Europe. That’s basically how we’re trying to
work all the equipment so that we can actually have duplicates.

BD: You’re
like the people who play
piano, and have a piano each place.

EG: Well,
we’re getting there. But you
know, it’s very important that I play on equipment that I know, that
I’m familiar with. That just makes me, obviously, feel
more comfortable. And also, a lot of the pieces are written for
me and for the instruments that I own, so sometimes I
have to use my own equipment! But it certainly makes me feel
better.

BD: Is there
not a lot of standardization of marimbas
and xylophones, and all of the other percussion instruments?

EG: There’s a
great deal of variation,
actually: different sizes, different feels, different
materials that are used, different heights, and so on. It takes a
wee while just to get to know an
instrument, and the wonderful thing about playing on
my own equipment is that I know how each one can speak. I know
how I want them to be tuned, and so on, and that’s
very important at the end of the day. For example, if we think
about a multi set-up —
more than one
instrument — then I would
tune the instruments in harmony with the
piece, and that doesn’t necessarily happen when you’re using
unfamiliar equipment. It may be that you simply can’t get the
pitch that you’re after, or the type of sound or color or the resonance
that you’re after. Just lots of little
tiny, tiny subtleties like that come into consideration.

BD: Are you
your own technician, or do you have
others that help you with the tuning and the regulation?

EG: [Laughs]
Well, I do have a percussion technician,
and they certainly deal with the setting up of the equipment, the
looking after of the equipment, and so on. And in the past, I’ve
had a body who has been able to tune the instruments
to how I like it. But at the end of the day I just like to do
that myself, and it allows me to really
home in on the instruments, get to know the equipment, find out the
different possibilities, as opposed to having that done for me and
then walking on, not really having explored the different sounds
available.

BD: Because
of your lack of
hearing, how would you be able to differentiate between subtle colors,
and even pitch?

EG: It’s a good
question, and this is something
that I find I have to explore a lot with the equipment. For
example, I may just have one tom-tom and I’ll remove the head
completely. Then I’ll pop it on and just start from the head
being really, really slack. I’ll work my way up and just take
my time to know what things feel like — what kind of experiences I’m
having. But all the time, I know the type of sound that I’m
after, whether
it’s reverberant sound or a kind of dead, dull sound,
whether it’s a bright sound or a short, sharp
sound, whatever. Just little things like that and I
just work my way through the drum to really, really
get to know the real subtleties. Obviously someone
has to say what’s happening with the instrument, or if there are any
overtones or harmonics, but generally I
just like to work it out myself.

BD: Do you
find, then, that working with
lots of different instruments, you have to keep all of these dimensions
in your head for each one?

EG: Well,
that’s very true, actually, although I do
find that depending on the hall I’m playing in, I may have to tune the
instruments differently, or I may have to choose different sticks,
according to the acoustic of the hall. This is something that
I do all the time, so I never really know how I want things until
I have a wander around the hall and just get to know the
place. Fr example, it’s quite important that if I’m
playing a concerto with an orchestra, it’s quite important that I stay
for the rest of the rehearsal, i.e. the orchestra’s own private
rehearsal, so that I can get an idea for the acoustics
and just how the whole thing functions.

BD: Now, are
you hearing any of this, or are you
feeling all of this?

EG: It’s a
combination. I can’t say one
or the other. It depends on the size of the hall and it depends
how
close I am to the musicians. It depends on all sorts of things
so I’m not willing to say it’s one thing or another.
It’s just that I experience it, just as you do.

BD: But a lot
of it, then, becomes such a tactile
experience for you.

EG: Yes it
does. It’s something
that I don’t analyze. I really don’t analyze it because I’m just
after a particular thing that I’m thinking about,
and I’m not thinking about how I get that. If I find
it, then that’s great because I know it’s going to change for a
particular hall.

BD: Does it
change from audience to audience?

EG: Yes, it
certainly does. I think this is a
problem when you rehearse and then when you actually perform, because
suddenly the hall can change considerably. In a way, this is
something that you have to find out during the rehearsal, so
basically I just ask other musicians. I say, “How does
the hall change when the place is full of people?” or half-full of
people, or whatever. So we try to find out how many people will
be attending the concert,
just to give us an idea. But if someone says, “If
you sit up there, you’re going to hear the brass very well, or
if you sit down here you’re going to hear the strings very well,” then
that’s an impossible task. You just have to
play how you feel, and try.

BD: Because
your music is tactile as well as
aural, do you strive to make it more than just an aural experience for
the audience?

EG: In a way
I do. Basically I
play how I feel at that particular moment. So, I suppose, I’m a
fairly instinctive player, but by that I mean I just literally walk on,
not knowing what’s going to happen, and that I just like to
have complete freedom over the interpretation. I very, very
seldom copy what I’ve done in my own private rehearsal session.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t! [Both laugh]
But this is part of the drama or
danger level that I think is so crucial in my own performances.
But in a way, because there’s this openness
to my playing, where yes, I’m prepared but I’m willing to
change things during the performance, it means that you never
really know what’s going to happen. I try to project this
kind of openness to the audience as opposed to
projecting a very sort of analyzed performance. So I suppose I
play from the heart and try to make it feel as though it’s just sort
of there — it’s happened at that particular moment, as opposed to
preparing something and then letting them see what I’ve been working on
for the past few weeks. It’s difficult to describe;
it’s difficult to explain.

BD: Does this
freedom scare your
colleagues?

EG: [Laughs]
Oh, I don’t know! If I’m
performing with my pianist — and
we’ve performed
together for a long time, since 1986 — we
know each other
backwards. So if my pianist decides to go off
somewhere in the music, then that’s fine. I’ll be there with
him.
And likewise, if I suddenly change the tempo or completely
change the mood or something, I know he’ll be there. This is
part of the fun, really. In a concerto situation it’s harder,
because, obviously, you may have fifty or eighty musicians behind
you. So I suppose I have to be a wee bit more considerate!
[Both laugh] But nevertheless, if I
have three or four performances of the same piece with the same
orchestra, then they’re usually pretty willing to try different
ideas. And I think that’s a great thing. Once you learn
the rules, you can then break them!

BD: Well, how
far can you break the rules?

EG: [Laughs] Well,
you know, I involve a lot of
improvisation within the notated music I play and I find that I have to
have this kind of freedom. I don’t know
why; it’s just the way I am. Basically I learn the piece as I
see it on the page, but that is done away from the instrument. I
don’t mean that I
simply have the music memorized, but I just mean I can quickly
look at the music and know what it’s about. Once
I have this almost visual memory, then, I go to
my
instrument and really I don’t have to worry about the actual
mechanics of playing because I’ve been thinking about the music first
of all, and working out the technical difficulties within my
mind. If you do it this way, it means that everything you
think about is always perfect! So immediately
you have positive thoughts, and then when I get to the
instrument, I’m concentrating on sound, on color, on effects — lots of
different things like how I want to interpret the music and how I want
the instrument to speak.

BD: Do you
ever achieve that perfection?

EG: No.
No, I’ve only once, actually, moved
myself by a piece. I can’t really remember the piece, even, but
it was
many, many years ago. When I finished the piece, and I was
silent! Within my mind, I was completely silent. Normally
when I finish a piece, I walk off stage or sort of stop for a while,
and immediately the piece is rushing through my mind at a million miles
an hour. And you know,
lots of things are thought about within that split second, including
mistakes. I certainly play wrong notes,
which I try as hard as possible to eliminate, of course. But a
mistake is if I haven’t phrased something the way I want to, or
if I just didn’t quite get the effect that I want to in a
particular place. That, for me, is a mistake, and when I
think about it, it’s enlarged a hundred times! I
feel that every member of the audience has spotted that mistake and I
feel terrible about it! So at night, when I lie in my bed, I go
through the piece and I go through every move, and that’s that time
when I actually analyze things and learn for the next
time.

BD: Can you
over-analyze it?

EG: I think
so. This is why I
like to keep this openness in my playing, so that
if I’ve played a piece a hundred times, I still like to treat it as a
child would, with a completely open mind. Sometimes I may
deliberately make myself change the interpretation so
that I don’t become too square with it, or take the way I’m playing for
granted. There are pieces in my repertoire that
I’ve played so often and if it’s with piano, then we try
desperately hard to change the interpretation, because there’s only my
pianist and myself. Whereas if I’m giving a concerto, it changes
naturally according to the conductor and according to the
orchestra, and that’s great! You’re
always finding new ideas, new possibilities. Some of them you
like, some of them perhaps I’m not so keen on, but that’s the way that
you learn about the piece more.

BD: Are you
ever at odds with a conductor?

EG: [Laughs]
Well honestly, I can really say that
I’ve had a great time with the conductors. There’s only
one occasion when I found it very difficult working with one and it was
just that he had very strong views as to the
music, and likewise, I did, too! So it was just a case of give
and take, and experiment. But really, all the conductors I’ve
worked with have kept a very open
mind because many of them have not necessarily
performed a percussion concerto before, so the whole idea is new.
And so I have to gently break the music to them,
because it’s unfamiliar repertoire and quite often has
been written for me. So I’ve had the added advantage of having
conversations with the composer and seeing the piece grow from a blank
page right to the performance.

BD: When a
piece that grows in front of your eyes, do
you help it grow through the composer’s pen?

EG: I like to
think I do in that first of all
we discuss the music, the type of piece, the practicalities.
That’s a very important point when you’re a
percussionist — whether it’s a piece that you can perform over and over
again. If it requires just masses of equipment or unusual
equipment, then it’s very difficult to put something like that
on. I like to perform the piece a lot. I want
to have it in my repertoire and I want to introduce it to
people. So that’s important to speak about. But also, as
the composer is writing away, he or she may
continually send bits of the piece to me, and I’ll comment on it, or
see whether it works, or whether they’re on the right lines. Some
composers just like to be sort of locked away for six months or
a year where they don’t want any contact, and then they’ll produce the
finished product and I’ll comment on it at that stage. So
it can vary, but normally I have close contact with the composer, which
I like. And then the sort of learning stages
happen when we go through the performances. So even now, for
example, with James MacMillan’s Veni,
Veni Emmanuel,
which is a fairly recent percussion concerto, every time we
play it we’re always thinking of new ideas. For example, I may
say to James, “Oh, why don’t we try a different instrument?” and he’ll
be quite open about it. If he
feels confident that it may work, then we’ll give it a go.

BD: Do you
find that if a composer is writing for
you, they’re under an obligation to use every last instrument and every
bit of technique that is in your hands?

EG: [Laughs]
Well, no, fortunately! I basically
invite them to my rehearsal studio,
and at least they can see all of my equipment. I think that’s
important. However, we do talk a lot about the practicalities,
and some composers like to write for just a few instruments, maybe even
one! And, you know, this is great. They must write
something
that
they feel comfortable with. I’ll basically go through the
instruments with them, so I’ll talk about the various techniques, the
different ways of notating percussion, because we’re still going
through a stage where there is standard notation for some instruments,
but not all. Just different things like that so that they
get a feeling for my style of playing, and then they can write
accordingly. It’s usually a pretty important time, really,
this initial meeting. It’s just to introduce them to lots of
different things.

BD: Would it be
frustrating for you, then, to have a
concerto for snare drum?

EG: Would you
believe [laughs]! For my
concert in Cincinnati I’m actually performing two pieces. The
first piece is by a British composer, Dominic Muldowney, and he uses a
lot of equipment, ranging from marimba, vibraphone, boobams, tom-toms,
cymbals, temple blocks, bass drum... Oh, I can’t remember what
else!
A few other bits and pieces! There’s quite a lot of equipment for
that
piece. The second piece I’ll be playing is, in fact, a snare drum
concerto by the Icelandic composer Askell Masson. It’s the
only snare drum concerto I’ve ever come across. It uses full
symphony orchestra and then just this little snare drum. It
lasts ten minutes and really it’s one of my favorite pieces. I
can’t say that it’s a great piece of music; it really isn’t that, but
it’s just a very effective, very musical piece that really uses the
snare drum as a musical instrument. There aren’t really any
kind of fancy techniques or anything, or just kind of
gimmicks, or something like that. It isn’t about that. It’s
sort of straightforward, but really good, solid playing involved.

BD: Is it a
study in rhythm?

EG: No,
fortunately! [Laughs] And I think this
is an
important point, and a good point for you to pick up, in that it’s very
easy for percussion to be squared and for us not to think of
phrases. Strangely enough, when we find untuned percussion
writing, unpitched percussion writing, you very seldom see phrase marks
actually in the music. You’ll find it for tuned
percussion — marimba or xylophone — but never really for
snare drum or timpani, or a multi set-up. And I don’t know why
that should be! I don’t know why it should be any different
because we’re
always thinking of phrases. We always have a beginning, middle,
and an end. When I play snare drum or tambourine or
something, I’m always singing. I basically know where I
want to go, and I have to exaggerate the phrasing because we are
dealing with basically one instrument that has a color, as opposed to a
pitch or a melody. So it’s harder to create the phrasing, but
it’s so important that I have that sort of curved feeling in my
playing, as opposed to always thinking about rhythm. And I think
this is what Askell Masson achieves pretty well in his concerto,
basically stating an idea, a theme, if you like, or a phrase, and then
hearing it come back in different forms as the piece progresses.
So you can actually make sense of it.

*
* *
* *

BD: You
mentioned before that sometimes the
conductors had not worked with a percussion concerto. Are you
still encountering resistance on the part of the public, when they’re
used to symphony concert, to all of a sudden have this percussion group
in front, played by you and assaulting their ears?

EG: I can
honestly say that most
of the audiences I’ve performed to have been very open-minded.
Basically, they can read the program before they attend the
concert. They can see what’s subscribed, if you like, for
that season, and it’s their choice whether they come or not. I
think that most of them are very curious. They may
not know the repertoire, so they want to broaden their horizons.
Also, percussion is something that we’ve all experienced at
some stage in our lives, whether we’ve struck a triangle or a
tambourine or something. So there’s this kind of
sense of curiosity where percussion looks interesting, which is great,
but at the end of the day, you want it to
sound interesting. There’s just this kind of
feeling where, “Well, I haven’t a clue what to expect here, so let’s
just go along and see what happens!” And it may be that perhaps
the audience has maybe heard something on the radio
or seen the performer on telly and may just feel,
“Oh, I’d quite like to go along and see that.”

BD: Do you
have any advice for the subscriber
who comes for the Beethoven overture and the Brahms symphony, and
hears Glennie in the middle?

EG: Just come
along and
really, really keep an open mind! That’s all I can say. If
you like it, that’s wonderful. If you dislike it, well,
that’s also wonderful. I don’t want to force
people to enjoy this sort of thing. It’s up to them how
they perceive it and basically it’s an area of music that needs
to be explored. Percussion is actually going through an
explosion at the moment. It’s developing very, very
quickly! There are really, really fine, great players out there,
and we’ve basically got to encourage the composers to keep
writing music for us. It’s strange to think that when I was a
student there were two concertos in the library at
the Academy on London. Now, in my own library, I have over
two hundred! So, that’s the extent of what there is for
percussion! And it’s still growing.

BD: What
advice do you have for composers?

EG: Please,
please, go along to as many
percussion concerts as possible, because each one is different.
Percussion is so varied, and in many, many different cultures,
percussion is the main family of instruments.

BD: Such as the
gamelan?

EG: Gamelan,
even, in Japan, or China. In Latin
America we see percussion and Africa, of course. It’s really
only in Europe where percussion has been
featured and extended in the orchestras, hence why we have so many
great orchestral percussion players. But we don’t have that big a
tradition as far as the solo repertoire or ensemble repertoire.
So, you have to, in a way, get into world music and just explore
what’s out there and get together with the players. That's very
important because young players who are leaving the colleges are
equipped with new techniques! Now they can play with
six mallets, and I’m struggling with four! [Laughs] But
it’s wonderful. It’s nice to feel as though you’re part of the
chain.

BD: At what
point, when you’re working on a piece, do
you say it’s got to be two players rather than just one
player; it’s just too much to cover?

EG: I’ve only
experienced that once,
and it was really my fault for not paying attention to the score!
I was playing a piece that actually was written for two percussionists,
and I was desperately struggling with it thinking it was for
one! I did it, but it was such a nightmare, I can’t tell you!
[Laughs] A few days later, a
friend of mine sent a little note to me, and he said, “Evelyn,
I think this piece was written for two players,” and I
died! Well, I didn’t die, but I really strangled the score!
Also I had an organ and percussion piece written for me by the
British composer Christopher Brown, and heavens, the amount of
equipment that was used was just far too much! I so
desperately wanted to play it on my own and it just wasn’t
possible; it really wasn’t possible. So I got another player to
help out, and he said to me, “Evelyn, this part could
afford to have four players.” It was as busy as that. Even
with two players we were rushing around. I’m not so keen on
pieces where basically I
have to worry about page turns, or getting from one set of instruments
to another. I really just want to concentrate on the
music. So, it’s a bit of advice for
composers, maybe.

BD: Let me
ask you the big philosophical
question: what is the purpose of music?

EG: Well, I
don’t think I can really answer
that without giving it a lot of thought, but at this
stage in my life, I feel that music, for me, is a language. It’s
something I can communicate with. I get as
much enjoyment out of playing music privately, i.e. to myself, as I do
to a
thousand, two thousand, however many people. And I think that the
beauty of music is the communication between people. It
doesn’t matter what color they are, whether they’re rich or poor, black
or white, where they’re from — it doesn’t matter. The wonderful
thing about percussion, especially, is that
there are no class barriers. The extent that
percussion is used throughout the world is quite considerable, and
some of the really, really great percussion players are amateurs!
It may be that they specialize in one area of percussion, but
nevertheless, that’s their life. If we think of the music of
Brazil, for example, it’s amazing. Or if we think about the Scots
style of drumming, it’s people who really devote their lives
to that particular thing. It’s just incredible being able to be
in a position to share what they know, and at the
end of the day, we’re all musicians who happen to play percussion, and
we happen to speak the same language. That’s something that no
one can take away.BD: A number
of years ago we were doing environmental
kind of compositions, and everything became instruments. Would it
be possible for you to literally play every piece of furniture, every
wall, and every chair in any room?

EG: [Laughs]
Wow! Well, I’ll
have a go tonight! Just before I go to bed, I’ll try my
hotel room — and be sure not to break anything. But yeah, I think
it is. One of the things I noticed while I was in Brazil was when
I was
sitting at a table, just minding my own business, having a cup of
coffee, and someone came up to me, and just started
talking! I have no idea who this individual was or
anything, and then we got talking about music. He had
this box of matches, and I’m telling you, he created the most
incredible feel just from this tiny box of matches. It was
absolutely amazing. So I think it is possible to create
something with anything. At the end of the day, we all drum away
to
ourselves, you know. We walk down the streets and there’s rhythm
there, and so on. But it’s exploring it a wee bit farther
and creating that emotional side as well, that I think is special.

BD: Have you
been in on the creation of any new
musical instruments?

EG: No, to be
honest. Not yet, but it’s
something that
certainly interests me. If a composer wants a particular
sound, then I hate to say, “Well, it’s impossible,” or,
“There isn’t an instrument that can cope with your needs.” I
really, really try to find someone who could perhaps make
something. One of the interesting things for me in my travels is
to
come across all the different percussion instruments throughout the
world. And there are many, many, many that I still
haven’t seen and probably never will. But it gives me lots of
ideas to take to the instrument makers, and say, “Why don’t you use
this idea and create a particular sound?” Or I may just draw
something and give it to them, and just ask them to go away and think
about it and create something just out of curiosity, really, more
than having any sort of musical idea or thought. But take
someone such as Harry Partch. His instrument collection is
absolutely
amazing and something like that I’m very interested in. So I
haven’t been involved in it in the past, but it’s certainly
there to be explored.

BD: Have
people come to you with new instruments to
try?

EG: Yes,
that’s happened and that’s very exciting,
it really is! And a lot of these people who make things don’t
actually know very much about percussion. They come
with all sorts of shapes and sizes of different things, and they create
different sounds. And some of them, as soon
as you strike it, will smash and go into tiny
bits! Others will be more sturdy, or you
may try different skins or different materials. Some of them can
be incredibly ornate, so you’re frightened to play
them because they look so amazing! But that’s a
great thing because there are some real arty people out there who have
created a bit of art and they haven’t quite realized
that it’s also a musical instrument. [Laughs]

BD: Does it
ever surprise the audience that here is
this lovely, smallish, young lady getting an immense amount of sound
out of all of these instruments?

EG: Well, I
don’t know if I’m so
small, but sometimes people will say, “Oh, you must
have a lot of muscle to play the drums, or timpani, or
marimba, or whatever.” And I would say, “Well,
actually, no, you don’t need muscle. You just need to be
supple.”
You need to be relaxed. Basic things need to be looked at like
postured. Just having the
instruments at the height that suitable for you is very
important. I very seldom
wear shoes when I play. It means that I have a better spring
and I can move around like a cat in that I don’t make a sound getting
from one set of instruments to the other! I don’t know; it’s
something I don’t really think
about. I just basically plow my body weight into the
instrument, and then I just get the sound that I’m
after. But I’m not aggressive towards the instruments. I
don’t insult the instruments, but I like to
know that the equipment can stand a good beating. I hate using
the
word, but you know what I mean. I can
sort of launch myself, dive into the instrument if I want to.

*
* *
* *

BD: When
you’re playing, how much is art and how
much is entertainment?

EG: Again, it’s
something I don’t
really think about. Strangely enough, when I look at myself on a
video or a TV, then I think to myself,
“Gosh, do I really look like that? Do I have those terrible bad
habits when I play?” When I play, I just play how I
feel and that’s it. I don’t think about how far my sticks are
being raised or how flashy things look. I play how I
feel comfortable. I position the instruments so that they feel
good to
me. I wear things that feel good to me, things that are
practical. So things such as wearing long, frilly frocks, for
example,
is not my cup of tea, I have to say. But also, you
know, I could catch my sleeve on a cymbal stand or something, and
heavens above, I can’t imagine! So I just like to wear practical
things, and I feel as though I like to give a sort of honest
performance. I like to give how I feel at that moment in time, so
it’s like a quick snapshot that you have of my playing. Obviously
I like to make things look good, as far as taking advantage
of lighting and things like that. I think that’s very important
to explore more in my recitals, because sometimes orchestras may want
to
keep straight lighting, and that’s it. But they are getting
around to having some interesting lighting to suit the
piece, and I like to explore that a wee bit. So it depends,
really. It depends on the situation.

BD: Is the
music that you play for everyone?

EG: I can’t
really please everyone; it’s not
really possible to do that. You can try, but... I used to
try very
hard to please people and I got myself in hot water, really. It
didn’t quite work because it meant that sometimes I wasn’t receiving
musical satisfaction, and perhaps a certain section of the audience
weren’t receiving it, either. It’s very, very difficult
to judge how to program something. It takes a lot of experience
and a lot of experimentation. And I think that with the sort of
thing that I do, there isn’t really, or there hasn’t been, a model, in
that no one has been a full-time solo percussionist
before. This is still quite new, so I can’t say, “Oh, well,
this is how Joe Blogs has done it in the past, so let’s learn from him.”

BD: Are they
now going to say, “This is how Evelyn
Glennie did it, so let’s learn from her”?

EG: Well, I
don’t know if they’ll do that, but they
can perhaps gain ideas and they can analyze my programming as
to why did I program like that. But I’m
changing my programs all the time, and I have to understand
first of all who I’m playing to. For example, if I’m asked to
play at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, then I know I can
afford to program Stockhausen or Xenakis or Henze, or Berio. It’s
a particular audience that will
be there, and it’s a particular festival. If I’m asked to play at
many of the summer festivals where there will
be a mixed audience, then I’ll present a mixed program. There
will
be contemporary music, there’ll be ragtime music, or arrangements,
things like that. It may be that in an orchestral
situation, that the organizers will say, “We have a French
theme,” or a Latin theme, or whatever, and then
I’ll present repertoires accordingly. Sometimes I choose
well, and sometimes not. You just learn, you know, you
really do. But that’s part of the fun, I think.

BD: Are
you ever able to go to concerts?

EG: Oh,
yes. The reason I don’t go to as many
as I’d like to is time. Sometimes when I get home, I just like to
be at home. But yes, I do. I like to go to orchestral
concerts. I don’t like chamber music so much; that’s harder to
perceive. I like to go to folk music concerts. Pop
music I’d love to experience more, but I just haven’t been
able to get around to that. I usually like to feel
as though I can go to concerts, but the time when I am able to do
that, oddly enough, is if I’m touring. So if I have a spare
evening, instead of sort of sitting in the hotel room, I usually
find out what’s going on in town and go to whichever one suits
me. But it helps if I know the repertoire; that really
does. But sometimes I go out of curiosity, so I suppose
it’s for the same reasons as many other people.

BD: Do you
have any kind of passion to try to bring
music to other deaf people?

EG: Well, I
think that I don’t involve myself with
other deaf people that much. I mean, basically I’m just a
musician who has, you know, a job to do. And I find that—I used
to work a lot with deaf kids, especially, and it was very easy to get
wrapped up in that! So lots of different organizations wanted
you. And in a way, they expected miracles, I suppose, because
they felt that if I could play an instrument, all deaf people should be
able to play an instrument, and this is a fact. And of course, it
can’t happen. You know, if they’re not interested in music,
they’re not interested!

BD: That
would be like Perlman going out, and all of
the
other crippled children would be able to play the violin.

EG: Exactly
right! Exactly. It was
sometimes difficult to allow people to understand. I find that
what I like
to do when I am giving workshops or master classes is to
have a mixed audience, so to have hearing kids and hearing-impaired
kids. They can learn from each other. But basically I
don’t alter what I do, and I find that this is a better way
to approach it. That they can sit where they want and if they
want to hold a balloon in order to feel things more, then that’s
fine. If they want to sit there without their shoes on, that’s
fine. If they want to sit close to the instrument, that’s
fine. In some of the recitals we have a group of
deaf people that will be sitting at the side of the stage — in the
wings, but
at the side — so that they can receive more, if that suits them.
But they have to make that decision and basically I just play to
them. I just play, and at the
end of the day, each individual hears music differently. I can’t
say to them, “Well, this is how you experience the marimba,” or, “This
is how you experience the drum.” This is how I experience the
marimba, or a drum, but now you must find your own way. Some deaf
people can hear
well in the high register and not so well in the low register, or vice
versa. We all hear differently and I’m not in a position to
say how you can do something. I’m not an audiologist; I’m just
me. I just happen to be a musician who happens to
be deaf, who happens to play percussion, who happens to have brown
hair, and so on!

BD:
Thank you for sharing your
music with
all of us.

EG: You’re
welcome, thank you.

BD: Thank you
for speaking with me today.

EG: Oh, it’s
a pleasure.

Evelyn
Glennie - Biography from her website

Evelyn is the first person in musical history to successfully create
and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. As one of the
most eclectic and innovative musicians on the scene today she is
constantly redefining the goals and expectations of percussion, and
creating performances of such vitality that they almost constitute a
new type of performance.

Evelyn gives more than 100 performances a year worldwide, performing
with the greatest conductors, orchestras, and artists. For the first
ten years of her career virtually every performance she gave was in
some way a first. Her diversity of collaborations have included
performances artists such as Nana Vasconcelos, Kodo, Bela Fleck, Bjork,
Bobby McFerrin, Sting, Emmanuel Ax, Kings Singers, Mormon Tabernacle
Choir and Fred Frith.

Evelyn has commissioned one hundred and fifty new works for solo
percussion from many of the world's most eminent composers and also
composes and records music for film and television. Her first high
quality drama produced a score so original she was nominated for a
British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards (BAFTA's); the UK
equivalent of the Oscars.

Out of the 25 recordings made so far, Evelyn's first CD, Bartok's
Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion won her a Grammy in 1988. A
further two Grammy nominations followed, one of which she won for a
collaboration with Bela Fleck. Evelyn's twelfth solo CD, Shadow Behind
the Iron Sun (BMG Records), was based on a radical improvisational
concept and has once again questioned people's expectations.

The Evelyn Glennie brand is constantly exploring other areas of
creativity. From writing a best selling autobiography, Good Vibrations,
to collaborating with the renowned film director Thomas Riedelsheimer
on a film called Touch the Sound, to presenting two series of her own
television programmes (Soundbites) for the BBC, to regularly appearing
on television across the world, which include The David Letterman Show
(USA), Sesame Street (USA), The South Bank Show (UK), presenting and
performing on Songs of Praise (UK), Commonwealth Games Festival
Concert, This is Your Life (UK), 60 minutes (USA), PBS Profile (USA)
and many more.

Evelyn's activities also include lobbying the Government
on political
issues, her consortium with Sir James Galway, Julian Lloyd Webber and
the late Michael Caman successfuly led to the Government providing
£332. million towards music education. Other aspects include
Evelyn
Glennie Images, which supplies photographs from a vast image library of
Evelyn, Evelyn Glennie Jewellery, which is a range of Jewellery
designed in conjunction with Ortak is based on her influences as a solo
percussionist and Evelyn Glennie Merchandise. Evelyn is also an
international motivational speaker to many diverse corporate companies
and events. Evelyn also performs with Orchestras on the Great Highland
Bagpipes.

After 20 years in the music business she has begun teaching privately,
which allows her to explore the art of teaching and to explore the
world of sound therapy as a means of communication.

In 1993 Evelyn was awarded the OBE (Officer of the British Empire).
This was extended in 2007 to 'Dame Commander' for her services to
music [photo at right], and to date has received over 80 international
awards.

This interview was recorded on February 21,
1994. Portions were used (along with recordings) on WNIB in
1995
and again in 2000; on WNUR in
2006; and also on Contemporary
Classical
Internet Radio
in 2006. A copy of the audio interview was placed in the Archive
of Contemporary Music at Northwestern University. This
transcription was made in 2008 and was posted on this
website that September, and was also placed in the Oral History American Music Archive
of Yale
University.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been
transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award
-
winning
broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago
from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of
2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and
journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM,
as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website
for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of
other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also
like
to call your attention to the photos and information about his
grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a
century ago. You may also send him E-Mail
with comments, questions and suggestions.